There is a tale that the community of Keystone Heights might never have existed but for the simple decision of a young woman to take a walk.

In 1919, Agnes B. Lawrence was a recent arrival in Clay County with her husband John, a successful land developer and ordained minister. As representatives of investors in Pennsylvania, the Lawrences – with their dreams of founding a community – purchased land and settled into the Brooklyn Hotel on the shores of the lake they spotted from a passenger car on the Georgia Florida Railroad.

When plans called for the purchase of more land, the price for adjacent property had escalated beyond reasonable profit expectations. As the story goes, their bags were packed to get back on the train and start the site search yet again.

But, there is an old saying that if one gets sand in their shoes, they will never be able to leave Florida. Evidently, Agnes already had some of that Clay County sand stuck in her lace-up shoes and was reluctant to give up without a fight.

As the story goes, she took off for a walk. After traveling several miles through the sand hill woods she came to Lake Geneva and explored the shore for some time before she tromped back to the hotel to alert John to the jewel she had discovered.

Land acquisition progressed rapidly and in a relatively short time Agnes was moving into her new hilltop home on the shore of the lake in the newly-platted town of Keystone Heights.

Agnes Ellen Boyd was 35-years-old when she married John Lawrence 11 years her senior. She applied the same focus and energy to her very different life after marriage that had proven so successful in the past.

In 1911, Agnes had graduated with a doctor of chiropractic degree from Iowa’s distinguished Palmer School and became the first woman licensed in the state of Pennsylvania and in the city of Pittsburgh. Her skill was tested in the Pittsburgh influenza epidemic when so many died that mass graves were dug with steam shovels. But out of the scores she treated, she lost only a handful of patients.

She continued to practice her medical skills in their new Florida home but accepted no payment other than eggs, homemade jam and the occasional chicken.

Agnes and John were in charge of day-to-day administration and operation of the new community. They supervised all construction, introduced and toured with potential settlers, and generally pitched in at whatever needed doing. Agnes served as treasurer of the company.

Luckily for residents of current day picturesque Keystone Heights and Clay County, she was operating on her lifelong mantra when she took that walk, “first comes action, then inspiration.”